Ex-Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak out of the hospital

Three days after suffering a heart attack, former Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak was released from the hospital Tuesday.

Rybak, 58, was cross-country skiing at Theodore Wirth Park in Minneapolis Saturday afternoon when he experienced shortness of breath and chest pains. He was taken by ambulance to Abbott Northwestern Hospital, where he underwent two angioplasty surgeries and had six stents inserted, WCCO reports.

"R.T. is in great spirits and has returned to his usual self, often joking and being certain that people know the trails were outstanding on Saturday and are aware he skied 7.7 miles before friends called 911,” Rybak's former press secretary Andy Holmaas said in a statement.

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Rybak will spend the next couple weeks recuperating before getting back to work. The Star Tribune noted Rybak will then start at his new job as executive director of Generation Next, a nonprofit organization focused on closing the educational achievement gap in schools.

Megan O'Hara, Rybak's wife, told the newspaper that her husband will skip the long ski race in the City of Lakes Loppet this year, but hopes to participate in the calmer luminary loppet.

Rybak is in Iowa ahead of the caucuses and dishing out some strong words for Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. He said the primary is Romney's to lose and anything less than a first-place win would show he couldn't win national support.